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Panel discussion, Royal Visit - Studio 10

Written by Editor

Friday, 04 April 2014

With the Royal Visit just around the corner, Studio 10 hosted a panel discussion about #RoyalVisitAus (the upcoming Royal Visit) and the wider issue of changing from a crowned republic to some form of politicians' republic.

Highlighting that, in terms of the constitution where the Crown is at the centre, Professor Flint reminded viewers that the Crown is important not so much for the power that it wields, but the power that it denies the politicans. With the arms of government being so close in Australia, it is important to have a checks and balances. Whatever our fascination with the Royal Family, it's the system that is important, he added.

When asked what's wrong with a being a fully autonomous nation, Jai Martinkovits noted that our crowned republic is already fully autonomous. Immigrants have adopted as their own our fundamental institutions and we have built a very successful nation on that basis, he added. It would be an ill conceived proposal to simply dispense with what we've got, unless you're going to replace it with something better - and we're not seeing that coming from the republicans any time soon.